Faint Rays of Light
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [drabble collection] Often, they are difficult to see and indistinct. But when caught on glass, they come alive for a fleeting moment. / 2. Edward and his father disagree about the value of looking back.
1. (Cos) Edward, Flight

**A/N:** This collection contains uncorrelated drabbles (no poetry) part of several different challenges (and possibly competitions too) from the Fullmetal Alchemist: A Bit of Everything Forum (link's on my profile). They'll be from both the 2003 and 2009 animes and their respected movies, or general, but I'll mention what it is for easier navigation.

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**Faint Rays of Light**  
_a collection of drabbles_

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**Context: **Post 2003, pre-CoS**  
Character(s)**: Edward Elric  
**Challenge(s):** The A-Maze-Ing Race Challenge, prompt: flight

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Edward had long since been drowned in the masses of people flocking to the square, and instead of fight the majority he'd simply let himself be swept away. It wasn't as though he had a particular goal in mind after all: aside from his search for a way home, currently facilitated by his studies at the university, he had nothing to ground him to this world.

Really, it made no difference if he spent his Saturday evening like a dry bird in the taverns, or one with clipped wings running along the ground as they watched the fighter planes in the sky. What did matter was how many those fighter planes would kill once they went into practise, just like how those Philosophers Stones of Doctor Marcoh had killed so many Ishbalans in the hands of the Amestrian Military.

And yet he'd created them anyway, just like people had created those fighter planes, possibly for other reasons than the war. People with their own personal desires they tried to realise, even if it cost the rest of the world a very steep price.

Edward gave himself a sad smile; he was really no different. Looking for a way home no matter what it cost, no matter what consequences opening the Gate again could bring. It was what had brought him into the heart of war again, what had caused him to leave England for a similar nightmare instead of a small haven of peace.

But there was no peace for a drowning man, he reflected in the loud whirs of engines as fighter planes continued their acrobatics overhead. He wondered if the Icarus in the legends really could have drowned, or had he clawed his way up to the surface and created new wings for himself from steel?


	2. (2009), Edward&Hohenheim, Looking Back

**A/N:** This collection contains uncorrelated drabbles (no poetry) part of several different challenges (and possibly competitions too) from the Fullmetal Alchemist: A Bit of Everything Forum (link's on my profile). They'll be from both the 2003 and 2009 animes and their respected movies, or general, but I'll mention what it is for easier navigation.

* * *

**Faint Rays of Light**  
_a collection of drabbles_

* * *

**Context: **2009**  
Character(s)**: Edward Elric, Van Hohenheim  
**Challenge(s):** The Monthly Quotes Challenge, January 2014 - "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."- Soren Kierkegaard; Halloween Daily Prompts Challenge, Day 6 (medium): Edward, paintbrush, hide, _If you're going through hell, keep going,_ - Winston Churchill; The Snakes and Ladders Challenge, Edward Elric.

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Edward tried to avoid looking back. He thought of it, looking back that is, as a futile exercise – one that slowed the mind down. What came of it, after all, except feelings of regret and despair? It was the future that held the possibilities, the hope, the other paths; the past simply held the mistakes that could never be taken back.

Hohenheim disagreed; he thought his son's refusal to look back was a childish thing, the sort that led little kids to hide under the bed in a thunderstorm, to colour over the scary things and pretend they weren't there. And maybe it was like that, but Edward refused to believe it. Looking back was his way to look forward – and maybe he wasn't strong enough to walk through life backwards.

He did look, sometimes. In his nightmares. In the brief moments of regret he allowed himself when he saw his brother's hollowed body or other trails of tears he left behind. But he walked with his eyes set forward, each step deeper into sin, into hell, to fix those mistakes on his back.

If he kept on looking at them, he might stop, get stuck. He couldn't do that; he couldn't afford that. He needed everything he had to go on forward – to go until he reached the end and patched up all those bleeding holes in the past: Alphonse's body, his own arm and leg, that sad look Winry and Pinako always gave him whenever they repaired his automail… If he kept on looking back on them, he'd never be able to turn metal into flesh, nor frowns into smiles.

He wouldn't be able to bring happiness back. But that was why he struggled through hell, went towards a greater hell. By pushing it in front of him, he opened up the gardens of heaven behind. He didn't believe in a God, but he still believed there was a happily ever after out there for anyone, no matter what the past said against it. He simply had to salvage what he could from the past and then leave it behind, press on.

Hohenheim still thought his son was running away from that past. And he knew, one day, Edward would have to stop and look properly at that past he'd been regarding, till then, with slanted eyes.

Because Edward had salvaged a bit, but not everything, from the baggage of his past.


End file.
